21 MAY 1881, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

T�IHERE is a dangerous irritability in Parliament at the

seizure of Tunis by France, which on Monday found expres- eion through Mr. Montague Guest, the half-Liberal Member for Wareham. He asked whether her Majesty's Government would recognise the Treaty, and being told by Sir Charles Dilke to wait for papers, he moved the adjournment, iu a speech fiercely con- 'demnator'y of French action. He declared that the French had substantially annexed Tunis, that Biserta could be turned into a port commanding the channel between Africa and Malta, and that Britain had always acknowledged the Regency as an integral portion of Turkey. He did not believe that Lord Salis- bury had handed any portion of the Ottoman Empire over to France, but even if ho had, that was no reason why a different

• Government should condone so outrageous an invasion. He trusted, therefore, that the Government would adhere to the Firmau of 1871, upou which all Europe, excepting France, had 'Congratulated the Boy, believing him thereby to have obtained the protection of the Sultan.